The New Orleans Times-Picayune has uncovered the fact that the state of Louisiana is the world’s prison capital.
One out of 86 adults is in prison, higher per capita than any state or nation in the entire world!
It is a rate three times higher than Iran and ten times higher than Germany!
Louisiana has doubled its prison population by allowing local sheriffs to operate local prisons, whereby the sheriffs get payments for how many inmates they have and keep!
A majority of inmates in Louisiana now are in for profit jails and prisons, a system which encourages incarceration. And the prisoners in these for profit jails do nothing all day to encourage them to have a better life after they leave, and are housed in large rooms with bunk beds and no privacy at all.
The harshness of the prison system is reprehensible, including more inmates serving life terms without parole, and more nonviolent offenders in prisons than any other state.
If one steals two cars, he is in prison for 24 years, and three drug convictions of any level lead to life without parole.
That such a system exists and is not subject to judicial or legislative review is a human rights outrage of massive proportions!